Very occassionally a late afternoon hunger takes over-- that is not sated by anything. I’m dealing with an episode of this right now. After a snack of cheese, whole wheat pita, nut butter, I’m still ravenous. Just tested & my BGL is 277.
I never go this high. (And had a normal low carb breakfast & lunch)
Is this a normal hyperglycemic sympton? How to treat it?
(I take Levemir before bed–would it make sense to split my dose, taking half now?)
I think you mean hyper (high) not hypo (low). if you’re that high, it means the energy/glucose from the food you’re eating isn’t making it into your cells, so your body can still think it’s hungry even though you have eaten. You might want to also get a script for short acting insulin like humalog or novolog which can be used to correct highs and also to cover meals if you are spiking and not coming down but your Levemir is otherwise working at its current level. Long acting insulin like Levemir isn’t well suited to corrections. That said, one problem you might be having is that lots of people need to take Levemir 2x a day—it often doesn’t last 24 hours for people, so you might not have enough in your system in the later part of the day if you’re regularly drifting high by then.
If you can you may want to get the afrezza for these type of corrections.
“I find that patients also benefit from Afrezza when it’s given as a correction dose if the patient’s blood sugar is very high and not coming down; giving a puff of Afrezza helps the sugar come down without going too low”
Tom Sparks personal experience - Actor Paul Sparks Speaks to Congress About Diabetes - YouTube
Being hungry is very much a symptom of a hypo. But there are other reasons to be hungry too!
It’s no big surprise that my bg is high after eating most of the contents of the fridge!
Testing bg before eating half the fridge, not after, is the way to tell if you were hypo before.
I know a lot of sources today emphasize testing after meals, sometimes I think they put too much emphasis on testing after and folks forget to test before eating too.
Cardamom,
Thanks for the ideas. Have my check-up with the primary care physician. I think I need to monitor more regularly. Maybe time to see the endocrinologist.
Will look into this.
This episode was a reminder that I need to test more throughout the day. With a good A1C, I get lazy and only test my fasting BGL a few times each month.
I’m also in transition as I just completed my first 3 months on a statin. This raised my BGL about 30 pts. Alot to discuss with my doctors.
I agree that if your blood sugar is very high, your body is probably having a hard time using the glucose. It’s what happens when a person goes DKA. Your body is starving for food but there is no insulin to use it. So many who have symptoms for DKA, hunger is one of them along with all the other classic ones.
And I think talking with your doctor might help with maybe introducing a short acting insulin to help with those stubborn highs. Good luck!